This New Year, instead of making unrealistic resolutions that are swiftly discarded by the wayside, focus on what really matters deep down and take sustainable steps toward nourishing that.

The worst things about the closing of another year are New Year’s Eve hype and paraphernalia.

With a few exceptions, the event is — on the whole — a dumb-ass excuse for a celebration.

How many New Year’s resolutions touted the day before, land in the bin with the rest of the gauche glitter and gun powder?

Quite often, those resolutions fail to travel beyond the liquid courage that spawns, then washes them away.

Broken Promises

Herein lies the tragic irony of this merry-go-round “celebration.”

The promises made for a new year are founded on the forgotten or failed promises of the passing year.

The subsequent concoction of self-hatred and alcohol fuels the vicious cycle.

It is riddled with the stench of failure and yet another empty salute to: “I promise to be better this year.”

With every new resolution comes a wave of unrealistic expectations and anxiety.

Before the New Year has even begun, people have loaded themselves up with unnecessary baggage.

They even come with a January 17^th date designated to ditch the baggage.

According to ‘Time and Date’: ‘In some studies, almost 80% of all people who make New Year’s resolutions abandon them sometime during the year.’

They add: “Ditch Your New Year’s Resolutions Day” is a day to ‘relax and stop feeling guilty about breaking them.’

Overcoming all the “new year, new you” nonsense (as if a clock or date has any redeeming power to transform us sinners) isn’t all that hard to do.

The good news is that self-imposed oaths and resolutions do not have the same power as a saving grace, which invites life-changing faith and repentance.

As HJS, a human resource company in the U.K. explains,

‘Instead of empty New Year promises to yourself, realise that to make real progress for any kind of change, small steps are the answer. Start looking at real lifestyle changes.’

Good Intentions

The great thing about New Year’s Eve is its invitation to replace the harmful with the healthy and the helpful.

The torturous cycle of resolution-failure-same-resolution-failure fits the former.

The fireworks, and fellowship. Kids being excited about staying up past midnight, a public holiday, fun food and beverages all hit the mark of the latter.

Quality Time

Consider the ethos of “Holiday Knights.” That relative, newly minted tradition in Batman lore, where every New Year’s Eve, Commissioner Gordon walks into an emptied diner for coffee to meet Bruce Wayne in Bat garb.

There is no fanfare. No trumpets. No false promises; just a simple exchange of mutual respect between the Dark Knight and the LEO who guards his identity.

No year is tame, because no year is exactly the same.

There are ups and downs, sideways distractions, and mountaintop moments that are met with valleys and sometimes complex decisions.

In a nutshell: News Year’s Eve is about people, not promises.

It’s not, said Karl Barth, the virtue of we do that saves us, but in the virtue of what God has done.

The New Year crazy is redeemable.

Focusing on family, faith, freedom and friends are at the top of the list.

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